Rick Rubin knows nothing about music debate, Finneas says

Rick Rubin knows nothing about music debate has prompted remarks from artists and producers, with Finneas telling an interview that Rubin may not mean “knows nothing” literally, citing videos of Rubin setting up microphones and adding that he sees the approach as an effective strategy he sometimes emulates to avoid intimidating others.

Rubin stated in a 2023 televised interview that he did not know how to use a mixing desk, and a 2024 podcast appearance by Jacob Collier included comments that he does not trust Rubin’s creative philosophies and would welcome a meeting to discuss them.

Other public comments include Pete Townshend’s remark that Rubin should “occasionally slap” him, and separate remarks from artists such as Kesha, Daron Malakian, and Beabadoobe that have praised Rubin’s practices.

The assembled remarks appear across interviews, podcasts, and public statements and present differing perspectives; the available material from those exchanges does not offer a single, definitive resolution to the debate over Rubin’s self-description or its implications.

Finneas described his reaction to Rick Rubin’s repeated claim of knowing “nothing” about music while noting admiration for work Rubin has produced. He said, “He’s made work that I’m really inspired by. I’m a little confused by his kind of… He swears that he knows nothing at all about music, and it’s like, just Google Rick Rubin, Johnny Cash. There are many videos of him setting up the mics. He doesn’t ‘know nothing.’” Those remarks present Finneas questioning a literal reading of Rubin’s self-description and drawing attention to filmed instances of Rubin handling microphones.

Finneas also set out an interpretation of what Rubin might mean by the statement and expressed respect for that approach. He said, “What I assume he means by that, and I respect this, is similar to what I’ve said before: there are a lot of people that know a lot more than I do. I don’t know the most, but I also don’t know ‘nothing.’” He further called it “an effective [strategy]” and stated, “I try to do the same thing, which is, I don’t want to make people feel like it isn’t achievable. You don’t want to intimidate somebody out of trying to make something by way of, ‘I have my 10,000 hours, I know so much, you’ll never know as much as I do.’ So I like that.”

In a 2023 interview on 60 Minutes, Rick Rubin said that he did not know how to use a mixing desk. The published report presents that statement as an admission about his technical ability with studio equipment but does not reproduce Rubin’s words from the broadcast. The available sources do not provide this information. No further technical details, verbatim phrasing, or additional context from the 60 Minutes segment are included in the material used for this article.

On the 2024 Colin and Samir podcast, Jacob Collier said he does not trust Rick Rubin’s creative philosophies. He said he would like to meet Rubin to discuss those philosophies and to challenge them, stating, “I’d love to sit with Rick at some point and just talk to him and chew the cud and push him.” The reporting records these remarks as part of the podcast conversation.

Collier also addressed Rubin’s public statements about art and purity and expressed explicit disagreement with a specific formulation of that idea. He said, “I’d also welcome to be pushed because all of us need to be examined. Our opinions need to be squeezed and broken and I just think that anyone sitting there and saying ‘This is the wrong way to do it’, like Rick saying art is only pure if it’s made for art’s sake. Absolutely false.” The quoted passage records his stated openness to critique and his direct rejection of the purity claim as presented in the discussion.

The article names Kesha, Daron Malakian and Beabadoobe as artists who have praised Rick Rubin’s practices. Those mentions appear within the same reporting that collects varied public remarks about Rubin from different artists and producers. The piece does not reproduce direct quotations from Kesha, Daron Malakian or Beabadoobe in the material used for this article. The available sources do not list additional artists who praised Rubin beyond these three names in the cited coverage.

The ‘Rick Rubin knows nothing about music’ debate appears across public remarks collected from several artists and interviews, with Finneas questioning a literal reading of Rubin’s claim by saying, “He’s made work that I’m really inspired by. I’m a little confused by his kind of… He swears that he knows nothing at all about music, and it’s like, just Google Rick Rubin, Johnny Cash. There are many videos of him setting up the mics. He doesn’t ‘know nothing.’”

Rubin is recorded in a 2023 60 Minutes interview as saying he did not know how to use a mixing desk.

Jacob Collier, on a 2024 Colin and Samir podcast, said he does not trust Rubin’s creative philosophies, stated, “I’d love to sit with Rick at some point and just talk to him and chew the cud and push him,” and rejected a formulation of artistic purity by saying, “absolutely false.”

The coverage also records Pete Townshend’s remark that Rubin should “occasionally slap” him and notes that Kesha, Daron Malakian and Beabadoobe have praised Rubin’s practices; the assembled remarks present differing perspectives within the same body of public comments.